ABSTRACT
The chapters in this book start from the judgement that the decades of the 1970s and 1980s saw the creation of state structures that have frequently been unchallenged, and which when challenges did appear, overcame them without being severely wounded or weakened. The contemporary era began in 1964 with the elevation of Feisal II to the throne, giving the system the stability it has enjoyed ever since. The enlargement of the cabinet to include members outside the royal family in 1975, and the succession of King Khalid upon Feisal's assassination in the same year, only strengthened the state's structures and policies. The representatives of the urban middle class or its components may have a very specific understanding of their interests and try to operationalise that understanding in policies. Those who run the state, however, look to their own interests even where their strongest power base is drawn from the urban middle class.
